Scoop: In Portland, Public Means "For Everyone."

By WW Culture Staff
  1. DO YOU REALIZE YOU’RE OFFENSIVE?: Major League Soccer’s free all-star week concert Aug. 3 featuring the Flaming Lips drew more than just fans of the psychedelic rock veterans to Tom McCall Waterfront Park: A small group of activists also attended, protesting the band because of incidents involving frontman Wayne Coyne and the appropriation of Native American iconography. Spearheaded by the national Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry organization, about 20 protesters gathered near the venue’s entrance, brandishing signs reading, “Culture Is Not a Costume,” and “You Still Owe Us an Apology,” and handing out photos from Coyne’s Instagram account of a dog and friends wearing feather headdresses. “We wanted to make a statement and make it clear we haven’t forgotten,” says Jacqueline Keeler, the group’s founder. Though the protest was largely without incident, a protester inside Waterfront Park was escorted out by event staff. At press time, EONM was preparing a letter to Mayor Charlie Hales, asking the city to institute a ban on cultural misappropriation at public events in the Portland area.
  1. VOTE BACON: What should be Oregon’s official state food? We’re not asking hypothetically: As part of our tour of foods representative of the 50 states, we want to know what should represent Oregon. A ballot can be accessed at wweek.com—marionberries, Dungeness crabs, Tillamook cheddar and James Beard’s onion sandwich are on the list. The most popular item wins a lobbying effort in Salem. Vote now or shut up forever.
  1. SECOND DATE: The NBC sitcom Undateable has been renewed for a second season, meaning former Portlander Ron Funches will get another spin on the small screen. The show, about four hapless dudes trying to navigate the dating scene in Detroit, had been dumped into a summer time slot, with NBC airing back-to-back episodes for several weeks. But it drew bigger numbers than expected (at least for summer), averaging about 3 million viewers a week. Funches, who left Portland in 2012, drew some of Undateable’s biggest praise—the Chicago Tribune called him “the show’s most memorable character” for his “cool, calm delivery and winning one-liners.”
  1. GROUND BREAKING: Harvester, the gluten-free brewery that won gold at last year’s Great American Beer Festival, has a new name, Ground Breaker Brewing. Harvester announced early in July that it would be forced to change its name because a California winery wrote a letter saying it found any use of the word Harvester “unacceptable.” Three years ago, the winery planned a box wine called Harvester that does not appear to be available. The winery was apparently concerned people would confuse Portland’s gluten-free beer with its nonexistent wine. The replacement name was suggested on Facebook.

WWeek 2015

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